BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT:

You might learn a lot about the world while sitting in the hair stylist’s chair at Generic Youth. It would help, though, if you speak four or five languages.

The scruffy youth boutique on the Westside prides itself on recycling — among its products are discarded keys and sweat shirts knitted out of old beach towels. Last week, Generic Youth launched a salon on one end of the store to complement its clothing racks, and when it came to decorating the stylists’ cabinets, the owners took the sustainable approach again.

The cabinets, which face a sloping driveway and a rugged patch of vegetation outside the front window, feature a coating of articles from newspapers around the world. Wednesday, the second day the salon was open, stylist Scott Gassaway busied himself between customers with a glue brush and a stack of headlines.

“It’s going to constantly change,” he said. “We’ll add more stuff on it as we go.”

That’s been the attitude at Generic Youth since owner Jeff Yokoyama launched it early in 2007. The store, housed in a former auto repair shop where tire treads still stain the concrete floor, has continually expanded within its small space on Pomona Avenue. The boutique recently started a “pop-up store” program to benefit small clothing manufacturers, displaying products by a new local brand every month.

By opening the salon, Yokoyama hopes to merge his fashion clientele with the stylists’ usual customers.

“We have our own clients,” he said. “Our clients will come in and get their hair cut, and their clients will come in and shop.”

Gassaway is the only stylist hired so far, but the store plans to add two or three others in the coming weeks, including local stylist Ivonne Villalobos, and also to develop its own brand of shampoo and conditioner, which will be sold in tiny bottles reclaimed from other salons.

“Instead of throwing it into the plastic to be recycled, we’re going to recycle it ourselves,” Gassaway said. “It’s another way to avoid damage to the environment.”

Condren Hampton, the owner of Hampton Salon in Newport Beach and a longtime friend of Yokoyama, oversees the salon at Generic Youth. He designed the area as an “anti-salon,” he said, forsaking mirrors in front of the chairs and letting customers instead look out the front window while having their hair done.

Hampton added that while the store’s name specifies “youth,” he considers that a relative term.

“You even get the parents of the kids coming in and shopping here,” he said. “So I think the age group is a state of mind.”

GENERIC YOUTH

OWNER: Jeff Yokoyama

SPECIALTY: Youth-oriented clothing and hair-styling

LOCATION: 1609 Pomona Ave., Costa Mesa

HOURS: No official ones, but generally open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday

CONTACT: (949) 650-5511

MICHAEL MILLER may be reached at (714) 966-4617 or at [email protected].